Parenting

Foetusbook the new Facebook for parents

Facebook accounts for foetuses, babies and toddlers is a growing trend.

Facebook pages for children a new trend

Status updates include: "Ready to woo ladies at Gymbaroo"

Expert says online profiles impossible to erase

PARENTS are no longer waiting for 21st birthdays to spill embarrassing secrets about their kids' childhoods - they are posting them online for perpetuity.

Social media experts are alarmed at the growing number of parents maintaining Facebook pages for their children from as early as conception.

Forget Facebook pages for pets - parents are now creating accounts and assuming the identities of their foetus or newborn to update statuses in baby-speak at each "milestone" from the first trimester onwards.

Unedited posts viewed by news.com.au this week include 'My first Cheezel', 'I ♥ tummy time' and 'just rolled over unassisted!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!'.

One mum Robyn, who is now living with her family overseas, said she set up an account for her toddler so that his family in Australia could watch him grow.

"I hope he likes looking back at photos and things that happened," she said.

She said she hoped her son would use the account when he was old enough.

While it is against Facebook's terms and conditions for children under 13 to have an account, parents are circumventing the age requirement by falsifying their children's date of birth.

But experts have warned that while parents were well-meaning, they could be doing irreversible damage to their child's reputation.

Lecturer in internet studies at Curtin University, Tama Leaver said setting up Facebook pages for foetuses was "a really odd thing for parents to be doing".

"There are all sorts of critical faculties in people's brains which seem to turn off in the euphoria of 'oh my God, we're going to be parents'," he said.

"I'm not saying parents shouldn't share baby pictures but I do think there's a basic literacy missing where parents need to think about social media and your unborn child.

"I imagine it must be the most horrific thing for kids when they realise they've been a Facebook person from birth or earlier."

Dr Leaver said information posted online was endlessly replicated and was virtually impossible to erase by the time the child was old enough to be aware of it.

"It's cute and endearing when you're two but it's also (embarrassing) when you grow up," he said.

"We're seeing a reversing of the big moral panic of 'should we be worried about what our kids are doing online?' to 'should kids be worried about what their parents are doing?'."

A Queensland mother said she created a Facebook page for her son Jacob within weeks of his birth.

"The only reason I got Jacob's page is because when he was born I kept forgetting to write down all the milestones like 'Jacob crawled today'," she said.

"I thought that if I got a Facebook page and made it as my status and tagged him I'd be able to go on his page and see all the milestones rather than diarising it.

"Will he use it when he's older? Probably, because I've set up his email address too but he'll probably delete all of the posts and be like 'Mum that's so embarrassing'."

Dr Leaver warned against using Facebook to record important dates.

"Facebook are well within their rights if they find that page to delete it and you really hope that all the material that's being posted to that is being backed up to your own personal hard drive and you're not relying on Facebook to be your archive," he said.

He also warned parents of the pitfalls, ranging from needing to notify Facebook friends when pregnancies failed to the child's information being indexed by Facebook's new Graph Search.

"The child might have to live with whatever supposedly funny things their parents are saying about them for the rest of their lives. That also means when they apply for jobs or find a boyfriend or girlfriend, all of that information is out there, potentially out of context, and that could be really problematic," he said.

"If the child is always described by the parents as being grumpy and unhappy or whatever, they may not be the right person an employer wants to employ even though that was when they were a three-year-old."

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Comments on this story

Steve Posted at 12:29 PM January 31, 2013

Possibly the worst use of the internet ever. It'll be funny when FB switches off in a few years when they keep making poor returns and something better comes along.

RCHeck Posted at 12:25 PM January 31, 2013

Actually - it is ethically and morally wrong to post images of a minor into cyberspace where it is mostly likely public property. Since that person can't make an informed decision for itself about whether they want to have personal information and images which can be copied, pasted, saved reused etc it is simply wrong to make that decision for them! Mothers are by far the worst offender. Funnily enough - I know a lot of mother that are constantly posting Facebook updates and photos of their kids, but then say they dont have time for cooking, or cleaning, or paperwork etc. U huh... turn off your computer and see how much time you free up to do your job - parenting. Stop giving your child's privacy away for your own gratification! (Only the people that do it will defend it because they just cant see they are making a mistake and that they ARE doing for their own benefit because it does NOT benefit their children)

Grumpy Cat of Melbourne Posted at 12:23 PM January 31, 2013

It is a against many of the rules. Both the baby and mother should be banned.

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